Shinsou Vs. Asui...

Chapter 30 - Shinsou Vs. Asui...

With the first match between Bakugou and Mineta being concluded quickly, with some damage done to the arena, Cementos only needed a minute or so in order to fix the damage done to the arena as well as remove the few balls from the ground. The next round would be between Tsuyu Asui and Hitoshi Shinsou who had been at odds ever since they had fended off villains in the USJ.

Actually, a more appropriate way of putting it would be that Shinsou used his quirk in order to get Tsuyu and their classmate Jirou as far away from the boat as possible. This was followed by Shinsou valiant effort at taking on all the villains at the same time which wasn't the best of his plans. During the attack he lost consciousness and as a result of this the frog girl was able to shake his grip on her which allowed for her to come and save him from drowning.

That experience had consequences for all parties involved some more obvious than others. The villains of course went to prison for mass destruction and conspiracy as well as attempted murder of minors. This was a more obvious than everything that had occurred to Shinsou as a result of overextending himself, some details he had just kept to himself.

Doctor's Office, few days after the USJ:

Hitoshi Shinsou was sitting in front of a doctor that he'd never seen before, and he had seen several doctors in his short life. He was a "quirk specialist" or something according to his business card, but that wasn't very important at the moment. The matter of importance was Shinsou's own quirk that was apparently at jeopardy of being lost completely. He couldn't understand how a doctor just went up to people who had lived their entire lives with quirks and simply called them into his office in order to tell them that they were no longer going to have them.

"Could you explain to me why you think that I'm losing my quirk, doctor?" He emphasized the title in order to show just how much he believed that this guy wasn't a legitimate doctor. The boy had seen a wide variety of professionals over the course of his life due to emotional issues as well as physical ones that had given him a wide scope of the people who worked in the medical field. None of the people that he had seen even came close to looking like this guy, or even acting like this guy who just kinda told him over the phone without much sugar coating. The doctor in question had a large mustache that reminded him of egg man from the Sonic games and his goggles were something that people wore in a shop not in a hospital, additionally this guy was also bald and just looked like he couldn't be bothered.

"Son, I put it as simply as I could over the phone, but I'll do it once more so that you can get the complete picture. You bit off more than you could chew and your quirk tried to keep up with everything that you threw at it. The problem is that although your brain is flexible it is not at all invincible. The area in your brain that controls your quirk was damaged by the overuse of your quirk.

Think of your brain and quirk like a box, the people that you control with your quirk are placed in this box. However, that box has a limit to how many people can be placed in it. What you did was take those people and squish them into the box even when the box was already full and breaking from the capacity being abused.

Whatever you did to yourself made it so that any further usage of the quirk causes that area to work more than it should, thus I assume that you've been getting headaches and nosebleeds." He leaned back in his chair and looked at the boy with sad eyes, or that's the way it looked from Shinsou's point of view. "The point it that you'll need to stop using your quirk if you want to live a relatively painless life and maybe be able to use it once in the future in case you get in a sticky situation with a villain and no heroes are around.."

"What! What about surgery or some other treatment!? I'm in the UA heroics course, I can't simply stop using my quirk, there must be something that you haven't tried yet?" The purple-haired boy was usually calm and kept all his emotions within himself, but right now he was grasping at whatever the doctor could give him. He wasn't one to bargain, but right now he was bargaining as much as he could. His quirk had shown up as the result of his mother's death, he couldn't simply give up using it.

"There is one thing that your other doctor hasn't brought up, but it's highly experimental and isn't exactly safe to use quite yet." The doctor wiped his brow and looked for something within his desk pulling out a bottle of unlabeled pills. "This is a prescribed medication that is currently in trials. It will either mutate your body to accept your quirk once more, or it also has the chance to mutate your quirk in order to work around the constraints of your body, or both. We still haven't gotten this drug to work on every type of quirk so it's still up in the air. The point is that this is the only option that you have at the moment if you want to keep your quirk and work in the field of heroics, I'm sorry" He placed the bottle of pills on top of the desk and crossed his hands in front of himself.

"So this is the magical solution to my problem. Some pills? What's their cost because they certainly don't look cheap." He wanted to keep his quirk, but a medication with effects like that sounded very expensive and his family wasn't swimming in cash.

"If you become part of the current group that is being tested then it comes free since not many people are keen to being experimented on with untested drugs." The doctor handed him the bottle and then went on to further explain. "Take one pill per day, see how you're feeling and then write down your feelings in a notebook, don't take any more than one per day, we haven't figured out if that does anything so it could end up being disastrous. This will take time and patience. Quirks weren't discovered overnight, so you'll need to work with us in that department."

"Thank you Doctor, I don't know what to say. Thank you." He took a hold of the bottle and began walking out the office, feeling much more relieved than he had been before coming in. The doctor gave Shinsou a nod and then pulled out his personal phone once he was sure that his patient was no longer in the room.

"Yeah, the pills have been delivered to the kid you wanted. We just have to wait and see what happens now. I'm not sure " Whoever was on the other end gave a light chuckle and hung up the phone. It was just a call to give his employer the information that he wanted, nothing more than that.

The doctor put his phone away and sighed, wondering how exactly he had gotten to where he was now. It had only been a few years ago when he had been a doctor who told parents that their children were quirkless. Now, he didn't even know what he could call what he did, work for a being who was the oldest being alive?

He reached into his desk once again and pulled out a bottle containing something a bit stronger than water. He was going to need it in the near future to help him forget everything that he was doing, that he had been doing for the last several years. What he had just given that kid, it was something new that his boss wasn't fully knowledgeable about yet. It's effects were up in the air and this kid, Hitoshi Shinsou, he thought that he was in danger of losing his quirk if he didn't take this medication. The truth was that maybe he'd get a headache each time he pushed himself too far, but he was never in danger of losing it. He just hoped that the kid would listen to him and only take one pill per day to at least prevent himself from having an unwanted side-effect.

UA Sports Festival:

With a bottle in his hands, Shinsou tried to think a little bit about a good reason why he shouldn't take another pill before going out there against Asui. So far he'd only taken his daily pill as well an additional one that he'd been taking in order to make it take effect sooner, except so far the medicine had only been giving him increasingly worse headaches and a nose bleed on occasion.

The day that he got home from the doctor he'd looked up the medication that he had been given. He then looked up everything that he could on the trials that were being conducted, but he could only find the most minimal amount of information each time. He wouldn't have believed that this was an actual drug that did anything if he hadn't tested it himself.

Thus he just stared at the bottle containing the pills that would either let him keep his quirk or do nothing at all. The boy with the brainwash quirk was going up against Asui, the girl with the Frog-Form quirk who was capable of outmaneuvering him easily. With her quirk being a physical one he was at a disadvantage here, if he couldn't get her to respond to his taunts then there wasn't a chance that he could win this.

These pills will either mutate my body to adapt to my quirk or will mutate my quirk to adapt to my body. Either way, something about me will change forever in order for me to continue using my quirk. Pills aren't the way in which I would have preferred to keep it, but beggars can't be choosers in this matter. Not when my future in the heroics department is on the line.

Shinsou took the top off and shook a single pill onto his palm where he looked at it with a small feeling of sadness. Even though he'd gotten this far on his own, he now had to rely on something so small in order to help him get across the finish line. He placed the top back in its place and then put the pill where it needed to go in order to take effect. He shook his head as it went down without trouble, the match before his had just finished as could be seen in the television. That meant that he was up next.

The purple child named Minoru Mineta had been defeated by Bakugou, big surprise there. That meant that if Shinsou did go on to win in his match then he would be going up against Bakugou in the one that followed. It had been quite a while since the two had fought in the battle trials, and he still couldn't believe that his plan had worked back then.

"Hey Shinsou are you doing alright?" Of course Izuku Midoriya was to be expected to make an appearance as he came through the door in order to wait for his own match. His presence was always a happy one, but right now Shinsou just wanted a little time to think by himself. This time though, he noticed that Shinsou was holding something in his hand that he hadn't noticed beforehand. "Is that for your nosebleed?"

"Yeah the doctor said it should be taken after I get one so that the blood thickens and doesn't come out as quickly." Giving his excuse the purple-haired boy went over to his locker and placed his pills inside in order to keep them safe and away from view. "He said that I'm probably straining myself a little too much, but I told him that I was in the heroics course of UA so he understood why that was."

Looking at his friend about to go up in the one-on-ones, Izuku wanted to give him some sort of advice in order to help him get on to the next round, but Shinsou didn't need his help in this department. Although he wasn't as combat orientated as the majority of the class, Shinsou's style was more prone to evasion and taunting. He was bound to have something up his sleeve, that's what their fight in the Battle trials taught him.

"Well good luck out there Shinsou, Asui is bound to be a difficult opponent, but you're creative enough to come up with something that'll get her off-guard."Shinsou gave him a smile before exiting the room and heading over to the arena where he was expected.

Hitoshi closed the door behind himself and walked a few steps in the direction of the arena before he collapsed from a sudden headache that actually brought him to tears. The pain itself was something that was unimaginable, it was as if he had found himself on the boat at the USJ once more pushing himself to the limit. His hands went to his ears as he attempted to block out the noise that was killing him at the moment. His eyes were closed as well in order to stop the light from hurting him any more than it already had. He began to shake on the floor and that's when he began to wonder if he was going to make it out of this alive.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. Hitoshi Shinsou's mouth began slowly releasing blood as his movements became less and less active. He wasn't moving like a normal teenager should've, or a living human being for that matter, his eyes were starting to give out, and his brain was on fire. His breathing stopped, and then Shinou lost consciousness…..

Hitoshi's Head:

It was for a mere moment, hardly any time at all, but Shinsou lost all consciousness as the amount of medicine overloaded his body and forced him to shut down. Though to him it didn't look like he was unconscious, it looked like he was in another place altogether. His body felt light and his head had no pain whatsoever. Wherever he was now, it certainly wasn't the physical plane where he'd almost died from taking that medicine. It looked more like one of those hallways in the stadium that wasn't illuminated and just went on forever.

After today he'd probably stop taking that medicine just seeing how much it affected him. Though he was pretty sure that the doctor had never mentioned anything about a side-effect this drastic. Heck, the doctor hadn't mentioned any specific side-effects, he'd kinda just given the pills to Shinsou without any real prescription or anything.

That would be a matter for later as right now he needed to get out of whatever this was. Maybe if he confronted his demons or something that would be enough to get him back to the physical plane of existence where he could go and fight against Asui. Looking around in his mindscape, Hitoshi saw himself just smiling back, waving a much smaller version of himself.

"So you did take that path? I hope that you are ready to deal with the consequences." This Shinsou was the younger, much younger, version of himself who'd witnessed the death of his mother. Though here he looked happy, maybe this was the version of himself before that incident."I just hope that's what you thought to be right. Mother would've never wanted you to do that to yourself."

He tried stepping closer to the kid and was surprised as he changed into something else, or just a different version of Shinsou, this was a Shinsou that looked like him except that he didn't seem to be wearing a facial expression.

This Shinsou wore the hero suit of the purple suit and trench coat. This was the version of him who had defeated Bakugou and Midoriya in the battle trials earlier in the school year. Before the ill-Shinsou could talk, this heroic version of Shinsou chose to do so first.

"Alright buddy, let me just be the one to tell you this…..you fucked up and now we are all going to see if you broke your quirk or if you made it into something even better. We are you, or your subconscious who want to tell you that you need to fix whatever mess you made and stop taking the drugs since they haven't been helping you" The trench coat wearing Shinsou picked the weak version up by the front of his shirt and smiled at him. "Though if you do fail then we at least get our ass kicked by the pretty frog girl on national television. Maybe you should apologize properly for what you did, that would be a good thing to do..."

The boy who was suppose to be fighting against Asui was then thrown against the floor and light returned to his eyes as he immediately took a deep breath.

His eyes opened as he laid on the floor, the headache was gone, but something had certainly happened to him as he felt completely refreshed. Obviously the blood from his mouth and nose remained, but he couldn't worry about that as he ran towards the exit. If he had been unconscious for a long period of time then he needed to get out on the field immediately. He sat up and used the bottom of his PE uniform in order to wipe some of the blood off his face as to not alarm anyone when he was seen. With that settled he headed to the tunnel exit….

"And there he is folks, someone go find Snipe and tell him to come back because Hitoshi Shinsou is here!" The teen looked around the stadium and saw the crowd jumping in excitement as his eyes adjusted to the light. "Well now that he is here let us do the introductions once again! Both students from Class 1-A, please give it up for Tsuyu Asui and Hitoshi Shinsou!"

The purple haired teen climbed up the stairs and looked at his opponent whose eyes widened just a tiny amount at seeing Shinsou's blood on his face and shirt. Obviously something had happened to Shinsou in the time that he'd been missing from the fight. Although it had only been a few minutes, it was still enough to raise some suspicions. This was going to be the fight that he had to see if his quirk actually worked anymore, that sudden attack was probably not a good sign, but he needed to see.

"So Tsuyu, can I call you Tsuyu?" He didn't hear Midnight start the match, but he knew that he wasn't ready for a fight head on. The boy jumped away from her tongue, barely avoiding it, and that had been a lazy attempt by the frog girl. His question obviously wasn't going to be answered as she personally knew how his quirk worked and probably didn't want to be under its effects again.

"Would it kill you do smile from time to time, I mean you have such a pretty face, a smile would only make it prettier." Flattery would have to be his go to strategy as a backup since Asui wasn't one to lash out at negative responses. "Did I ever tell you how much I liked your eyes, you know after seeing them when you stopped me from drowning on the day of the USJ."

Again she refused to respond to him, but instead crept down on all fours and hopped towards him cutting down a large amount of distance that he'd put between the two of them. As she stopped in front of him he only narrowingly avoided another shot from her tongue as it attempted to go around his foot.

"Now, now Tsuyu, Let's not get grabby. I thought we agreed that your tongue was supposed to be used for other purposes during our alone time." At this Shinsou closed the distance between the two of them and tackled the girl catching her off-guard finally. Using his weight he attempted to pin her like this and end the match, but Shinsou wasn't as combat orientated as the rest of the class 1-A.

With a roll backwards Tsuyu kept Shinsou's weight off herself and proceeded to use her legs to kick the boy across the field. This put Shinsou very close to the edge, so close that the stadium held their breath collectively in anticipation for the result of the match. The boy with a bloody face coughed a little as his mouth let out a small blood. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Shinsou to recall what he had seen in his weird dream induced by the medicine that the doctor had given him.

He didn't know if he still had his quirk, or if his body had changed at all, or his quirk had been the one to do the changing, but he had to determine this no in some way. With a certain amount of pain coming from his face, Shinsou smiled at the girl who had saved his life all those weeks ago and looked into her eyes. He felt something in his head, that same feeling that he always felt when his quirk was activated, the feeling he hadn't been feeling for the entire time that he had been fighting Asui.

She looked back into his eyes and something just clicked for Shinsou, he wasn't sure how to describe it. The feeling of power came back all at once as he maintained eye contact with her. The frog girl went back into hopping position and began making her way towards him once again, never cutting the eye contact.

Hello Asui.

Hello Shinsou

The words weren't said, but they were thought by the boy with the intention of saying them. It felt weird as he thought this phrase, such a common phrase, but there was something different about this one compared to every other time he had said the same exact thing. Then there was something even more unexpected, the frog girl stopped halfway through a hop and stared at him blankly, well more blankly than usual.

Shinsou maintained eye contact, continuing the usage of his quirk. Obviously, he still had it within him, but it was different now, very different. The quirk still felt like it did when he used it, but he wasn't sure exactly how it had been activated. Right now he felt just like he had felt when his quirk had first shown itself, scared.

"Tsuyu please hop out of bounds immediately!" He yelled this while trying to maintain his composure which he was failing at quite badly. She followed his command and the match was called to an end with the crowd cheering him on. Shinsou, scared at what had happened, gave her control of her body once again before he ran back into the passageways of the stadium.

The professional heroes hadn't seen a quirk like Shinsou's used in a combat oriented competition beforehand so they were clearly surprised by how it had been used in this occasion. They would have congratulated him except for the fact that he had run off right after winning his match which confused everyone in the stands. Even Tsuyu, who had lost, was still in the arena, was trying to figure out what exactly had happened. As she recalled, Shinsou's quirk worked by responding verbally to him, but she was positive that she hadn't spoken a word to him in several days.

It hadn't been since the USJ incident that the two of them had actually had a civil discussion. In fact, it was because of the USJ incident that the two of them hadn't talked, though right now Shinsou seemed to need someone to talk to. When he had used his quirk just now, Tsuyu was able to identify something in his eyes that she saw on the boat that day, fear.

Walking off the elevated ground, the frog girl walked in the direction that Shinsou had run off to and didn't have to look for long to find him. He was sitting in a corner in an illuminated hallway and he was just staring blankly at the wall opposite of himself. That's what it would've looked like if one didn't recognize the emotion in his eyes as fear, fear of the unknown that was his own quirk.

"Shinsou, what happened? Ribbit." She wasn't going to ask if he was alright, he clearly wasn't, she cut through everything in order to get right to the point. "What happened to your quirk?" She was smart, smart enough to know that his quirk had changed somehow. The rest of the world didn't suspect a thing because they hadn't been in that fight, but Tsuyu already knew how his quirk worked from personal experience.

"I don't know…." He answered honestly and then turned his head suddenly at her, refusing to make eye contact with her. He didn't know what had caused the activation of his quirk in the last round so he didn't want to risk activating it again by mistake. "I took the medicine that the doctor gave me and...now my quirk changed." His voice was shaky and full of fear, it was unlike the Shinsou that came to class everyday and gave the appearance that he cared very little. "I'm sorry Asui….for everything…."

His head sank between his knees as he attempted to hide the tears that were forming, the purple-haired boy was starting to go back to the day when his mother was killed by the bank robbers. He didn't want to go back, but there really was nothing that he could do when one of these flashbacks began. Except this time there would be someone who would sit here and help him as well.

"Call me Tsuyu…" The girl standing in front of him took a seat besides him and thought about what she'd do if one her siblings were the ones who were suffering like this. She wanted to be a rescue hero, this was something that she'd need to be able to do if she wanted to be a good one. "Tell me what you wish to share…. so I can help…ribbit" She tried giving a smile which Shinsou was just able to catch out of the corner of his own eye, this in turn made him feel a little better.

Overall, this wasn't a bad way to mend a relationship between classmates after what had occurred at the USJ. To Shinsou, this was going to be the first time that he would be able to disclose any information about his past to anyone, he hadn't even told Midoriya. He'd won his first match in the one-on-one battles, and instead of making an enemy, he'd made a friend in Tsuyu Asui. It was a good day...